


Reeds

by widgenstain



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Anachronistic World Views, Calm Down Erik, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Emma Ex Machina, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monks, Past Minor Character Deaths, Possibility Of Death Discussed, Roman Catholicism, Secularism, Sickfic, reduced powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2690915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/widgenstain/pseuds/widgenstain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Southern France - 1240 AD</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The abbot of a secluded and unusual monastery is severely sick. His life companion won’t leave him in those cold winter hours that could be his last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [garrideb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrideb/gifts).



> All hail to gerec for betaing this!

In the morning hours the glimmering ashes of the calefactorium’s large fireplace couldn’t keep the cold from seeping through the thick walls anymore. Winters in Provence usually were mild but the last two weeks had shown nothing but rain and a freezing wind, and this morning Erik woke to the sound of sleet against the wooden window shutters. 

The body next to him under the blanket shivered, even though a simple touch to Charles’ neck told him that he was still burning up. Erik closed the gap that had grown between them and wrapped himself around the shuddering figure. He kissed the bald spot on Charles’ head that didn’t need to be shaved anymore since no hair would grow in. The rest of Charles’ tonsure was getting longer, the thin brown hair wet with sweat and curling. 

Three weeks ago Charles had broken down during the mass for Epiphany and his condition had not improved since. He kissed the red left ear and buried his face deep in the neck of the other man, hoping to find something more familiar and comforting than the sour smell of old sweat and sickness. Vinegar, he should get Charles some water and vinegar to keep him hydrated and sooth the fever but the thought of letting go hurt. The thought of moving, breathing, turning his head hurt. The space around their little mattress in the calefactorium was too dark, like a bottomless pit that slowly drew him in by his heavy limbs. Still he was floating but it was only a matter of time until he would fall and the fear of it clenched his heart.

A dull pain in his right leg gave the illusion away. Charles had been lying on his bad leg the whole night and Erik shook his head against the dark morass that were Charles' thoughts not his. He needed to get up. Carefully he extracted himself from their modest bed, its location considered a favour. No other room of the monastery was heated and keeping Charles warm in the large airy dorm would have been impossible. 

It should have been Charles prerogative as an abbot to always have a place for himself, Erik thought grumblingly as he stoked the fire back to life and tried to warm some water with cider vinegar. Charles didn’t wake when he instilled the liquid on him, not really. He sucked on the wet piece of cloth Erik held out for him but his eyes were glassy and never found Erik’s darkly concerned face above him. His gaze was lost somewhere in the sooty black corner of the room. He hadn’t looked at him directly for three days now, not when Erik fed him, not when he cleaned him of the film over the irritated skin or his filth, nor when Erik clutched him so tight it must have hurt and begged him to get better. 

The bells rang for Prime and Erik could hear the shuffling of feet towards the church. The monks were gathering for the first collective prayer of the new day. Most of them were already up for at least 3 hours, something Erik, even after spending most of his life in the company of devout gentiles, would never understand. 

The prayers must have been hurried though, since only 20 minutes later a rap on the door announced Sean with the big steaming pot of porridge. Like every morning he’d carelessly spilled some of it on his black apron that covered the simple white woollen habit all the monks wore. He tried to give Erik a cheerful, hopeful smile that died in the roots when he saw his grim expression. With a wordless sigh he filled the small cups he’d brought with him. In the firelight the worried lines on Sean’s face, most of them permanent, appeared deeper and Erik knew that the once bright copper curls under the hood were streaked with grey. Even Sean was getting old. They all were. 

It had been more than 30 years ago that a bright-eyed novice had opened the doors of the monastery to three starving Jewish children without any questions or hesitation. 30 years were almost twice as long as his parents had together before they fell victims to the fury of a madman. A decade longer than his sister Ruth had been given in this world altogether. And the exact amount of time since Erik had lost his heart to another person. 

He cautiously lifted Charles and stuffed his pillow behind his back to keep him upright. Was it greedy of him to want more? Was it pretentious to ask for time, if not for him then for Charles? Those were some the thoughts that plagued him in the lonely hours he held vigil in this dark and stuffy room. The shadow in the doorframe didn’t leave when Erik blew on the coarse wooden spoon and lifted it to Charles’ mouth.

“What is it?”

“Nothing… I was just wondering if you wanted to go out for a while. Down to the village. Logan and his craftsmen are leaving for Avignon tomorrow morning. Go see them, talk to your frien- colleagues for a while. You’ve been in here for three weeks now; I can take care of Charles in the meantime. He won’t die if you’re not on his side for an hour or two.”

Sean realised he’d made the mistake of mentioning the d-word in front of Erik a tad too late when he saw the burden of it all rushing in on Erik’s face.

“I… I mean it’s just an idea.”

“No thank you. I’m of more use here than on any construction site. They’ll handle it without me. Except you want me to leave. Is that what you came here for?”

Erik didn’t possess Charles’ magic of introspection but he could tell that he’d hit a nerve anyway when Sean writhed.

“What is going on?

“We’re having a guest today. Her envoy arrived 10 minutes ago.”

“Her?”

“It’s Emma…”

After all these years Sean still froze under Erik's gaze.

“Why?”

“She hasn’t been here in a while, Charles couldn’t answer her letters so Armand told her of his sickness. She left immediately.”

The iron bracket in the northern wall started to vibrate as did the hinges of the door.

“I’m just the messenger, please, they’re friends, give her a little time with him.”

Friends. Erik remembered exactly which kind of friendship Emma had looked for when she first came to their abbey. Young, tall and beautiful even in the habit. So ambitious and full of disregard to the bindings of society that Erik had taken a shine to her, until he realised which role Charles was supposed to play in her plans.  
They were equals, both of high birth, one exiled to the church because she wouldn’t bow to any lord lesser than the Lord Almighty (and even that was a matter of debate). The other one a cripple, deemed unfit for a knight’s armour and therefore a fault in his stepfather’s aspirations. Together, and with the church’s influence behind their backs, they stood a chance to claim back what she considered theirs. Maybe, along with Charles’ refusal and the waning of her insistence, they’d become friends, but Erik never regained his trust in her. More than that, the more he learned about her the less he liked to see her around. Emma and Charles shared the same magic and the thought of how close they could be to each other tore his heart under a green, acidic wave of envy.

“All she can say to him she can say in front of me as well.”

Sean just sighed and mumbled “I told Armand you wouldn’t listen.”

“Is that all?”

Sean nodded.

“Then leave!”

Erik smashed the door shut behind him. The bang had stirred Charles whose eyes searched the room without focus.

“Charles? It’s okay. I’m here.” He took Charles’ hand and squeezed it. He wasn’t sure if he’d hoped loudly enough for him to hear, but there was something like a weak smile on the ashen lips and the clear image of water appeared in front of Erik’s eyes.  
He couldn’t retrieve the soaked cloth quicker.

Armand himself showed up next to get him. Of all the monks and novices passing through the monastery Erik had helped to build, he got along best with the boy whose family had been driven out of Mauretania by the Almoravids.

“She can come in, but I’m not leaving.”

“Please Erik. It’s only for an hour or so. See it as a good you do for yourself. You need to get out of here. Get some fresh air; see the snow. It’s been weeks now.”

It sounded reasonable but Erik was sure he heard mild annoyance in the concerned words too.  
He had no place here, he was allowed in because of the monks’ love for Charles and their goodwill but he was testing it with the way he behaved, he was aware of that.  
Yet he couldn’t just leave Charles. He had always cared for Erik when he was sick, despite the rules of his order. Not that they'd ever upheld them very strictly, not since that day in Erik’s 16th spring, but he’d always been there for Erik when he needed him. As he’d been for the other people singled out with magic for the most mysterious reasons. He'd protected them through the church’s power and his gift for deflection while Erik protected them with steel hardened to indestructibility under his gift.  
They were a team, inseparable until Erik had separated them to chase his idle rage and… He’d left Charles long enough. He wasn’t going to leave him now, not in what could be his last days. And certainly not because of Emma whose intentions were forever doubtful. She always found ways to benefit from someone else's malady. A signature here, a seal there and her influence on Charles’ nephew would grow even greater. So when he could feel the jewellery Emma wore under her habit despite her vow of poverty approaching fast through the arcades of the cloister he said:

“No. Charles isn’t conscious.” He signalled to where Charles had fallen into a restless doze on Erik’s chest, instinctively close to the source of warmth. “She can’t talk to him anyway. Send her away.”

“Oh for the love of the Almighty and his twelve disciples!” Emma stormed into the warm chamber, her cloak flowing around her like a queen’s mantle. Her cheeks were reddened by the cold and the blue eyes that lacked any of Charles’ warmth were ablaze with anger.

“Do you always call to your Lord that loosely?”

“Don’t try to lecture me, Lensherr!”

“Go away!”

"I'm here to help you! To help Charles. And if you stopped sitting on him like a crazy cat on her starving young, you'd see it too."

"How are you going to help?”

“I bear medicine. Hank sends his regards!"

“Give it to me, I can administer them as much as you can.”

“It’s not just the medicine! I have to talk to Charles, see how he’s doing for myself.”

“He can’t talk. He won’t talk.”

Erik couldn’t banish the desperation out of his voice in the last bit.

Emma's demeanour gentled a little as she stepped closer to their mattress, a hand questioningly held out to touch Erik’s shoulder.  
“I can talk to him. No, hear me out”, she said as Erik’s mind darkened reflexively with resentment at the thought of their minds touching. 

“I _know_ why you’re doing this and let me tell you: you don’t have to. I understand your wish to atone but you’ve done enough already. He has forgiven you years ago. Now please, Erik let me help…”

Atonement? Erik wasn’t here because he wanted forgiveness.

“You know noth-“

“Erik we know how much you love him.” Armand stepped closer.

“We know how much he loves you too, that’s why we want you here with him, but you’re hurting him more now than you’re helping. Please. Go outside for a while, I will stand guard if it keeps your mind at ease. There are shovels at the hôtellerie, Roberto is cleaning the road and he could use two more arms.”

Erik wasn’t sure if it was something in Armand’s voice or how he held himself, but he’d become prior for a reason. Somehow Charles’ way of leading had stuck with him the best.

With a sigh deep from the bottom of his chest Erik extracted himself from Charles’ hold and from underneath the blanket. The other man didn’t wake but rolled a tighter ball on the mattress.

“If you do him any harm, I will find you, you witch.”

Emma rolled her eyes but let Erik pass to get his thick coat. From the corner of his eye he saw how she sat down next to the mattress, her face so much kinder and softer than it had been before. Then the door fell shut and Erik walked through the cloister in long strides.

Roberto greeted him with a big smile on his face. The boy didn’t speak the regional dialect and Erik’s Latin was rusty but there weren’t many words needed to understand how happy he was about the first snow he’d seen in his life. The cold didn’t bother him as his body always exuded an inhuman warmth and he kept singing a folk song unknown to Erik as they proceeded to clean the remnants of the sleet from the monastery’s entryways.

He'd always imagined that it would be the other way round. That his recklessness or rage would lead him into a fight he couldn't win. That he would die first, either through the hands of one of Trasque's men, far from the place he called home. Or a simple fall even, a loose stone in a wall while he was on the job. Not this. Not this limbo between hope and realism and this fear of losing Charles. 

Erik looked up the simple facade of the church he had spent building his whole life. The house for a God that he'd never believed in. Which God would let whole families be murdered in his name? Which God would give people like him unbelievable gifts only to let them be born in a society that would kill those who possessed them? This didn't sound like someone who had already sent a Messiah to save his people. More like the cruel and perverse lords who ruled the lands and drained the peasants. All of them very human and able to bleed. 

Charles often and patiently had explained his beliefs to him. Erik still couldn't shake the impression that a lot of them were formed out of pragmatism and Charles' desire to make the one life in this world more comprehensible. Erik shared this desire but he didn't look for it in a book or a roll. Too many times he'd been disappointed by what he found. And now the only person that truly mattered to him was to be taken from him. With a scream he threw the shovel at the church's outer wall. One of the simple buttresses had to be repaired last year, now there was an iron brace between the lime mortars and with all his powers Erik tore at it. When it broke free he smashed it back against the stone. Again and again 'til the ashlars his precursors had so carefully assembled splintered and his lungs and throat burned from the frustration escaping through them. 

He'd made many mistakes, mistakes that led innocent people to their death; he wasn't a good man, not by a long shot. But he had never asked anything for himself. Nor expected to get anything. So why did he have to go through this? Why did he have to suffer like this? He'd buried enough people in his life. Ruth, Alexandre, Jean, Kitty's husband, and three of her children. The crumbling stone began to swim before his eyes as he raised the iron once again and drove it deep in the foundations. With a hoarse cry he sank back and the tears began to run freely.

In the back some of the monks were watching alarmed but no one intervened. Erik didn't know how long he'd be sitting in the cold mud before Armand came and carefully put his arm around him.

“It's okay.”

Nothing was okay. Charles would leave him here with nothing but dead stones that meant nothing to him as a testimony of his existence.

“Emma is finished. You can go back if you like.”

Erik looked up into Armand's still eerily youthful face and nodded.

When Emma saw the tear streaks on Erik's face and the mud on his cloak the permanent smugness made way to genuine sympathy. She seemed more sombre than when she'd arrived too, the exhaustion of communicating telepathically visible.

“He's sleeping. Truly sleeping. I calmed the frayed thoughts and implanted the idea of safety. It wasn't easy, the fear of abandonment spiked when he couldn't feel you anymore.”

Erik exhaled something that was more a long repressed sob than anything else.

“You're good for him, most of the time, I never said otherwise. But he will be able to rest now and gather strength. Here's the paste Hank made. Give a spoon to him four times a day with honey and take care that he swallows all of it. Can you do that?”  
Erik turned his gaze down and nodded with barely hidden antipathy.

“Good. I have an abbey full of nuns who can't tell their hides from a donkey's to get back to.”

“You're leaving already? I had beds for you and your company prepared in the hôtellerie.”

“No I have business to attend to the day after tomorrow. We will make use of the inn in the village halfway. Besides, I overstayed my welcome as it is.”

Armand shot Erik an exasperated look that made his ears redden for a reason not related to the warmer air of the room. The only one aside from Charles.

“Thank you. I will administer the paste as you told me. Give my thanks to Hank and tell him he is sorely missed.”

Emma's face lit up and the smugness was back.

“I will. Be safe and may God be with you.”

“Be safe.”

 

When Erik cradled Charles back to his chest the man's breath was steady and the feeling of falling was gone. He stroked the soft hair and kissed his precious head. 

Sexta came and went. Erik gave Charles the medicine, fed him when he was half conscious and cleaned him twice before Vesper. He thought of how embarrassed Charles had been when Erik had reshaped a shield to serve Charles as a bedpan in the beginning. And how much he longed for those awkward conversations now. All he could do now was hold Charles close during the night and keep the cold at bay with the barrier of his own body.

Nonetheless change came. The next day he still attributed the more temperate skin to his wild hopes and imagination but after three days of the dark green balm with the fishy stink, and no fevered illusions intruding into Erik's mind, he woke to clear blue eyes looking at him.

“Charles?”

“Hello.” 

It was a terrible croak but Erik momentarily couldn't remember a noise that had ever made him happier. What he'd done to the church's walls couldn't be considered a prayer. Not in Charles' beliefs and certainly not in those of his parents. But Charles was on the mend. Someone had heard him, he had to thank that someone for it. 

Hank. Hank and his genius most likely. Erik couldn't help the grin before he kissed Charles' forehead and the wrinkles around his eyes. Then he kissed the red stubble, all of the beautiful beloved face that was his to look at for a while longer. Joy bubbled in his chest, ready to overtake his whole being, ready to swamp Charles' open shields. The beginning of a weak smile curled the lips of the other man before Erik turned down to kiss them too. In the middle of their first kiss in weeks Charles squirmed away though.

_“Wait. My mouth tastes like foul cabbage.”_

Erik stared down at his wrinkled nose in disbelief.

“Really”, he said when he could form a sentence again in his baffled bemusement.

“You've been on the brink of death for weeks, I suffered deeply and sweat blood in fear for you and that's what you say to me first when you regain your senses?

“'s true.”

Erik couldn't stop it anymore, the joy in his chest finally erupted in a long and loud laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> About a year and a half ago the idea for a medieval monk!Charles verse was born when I was working on an essay about French monasteries. The “huddling for warmth” prompt I received in the exchange fit an idea I had for that verse in which Erik, Ruth and Kitty grew up hidden in a small village close to Charles' abbey after their families were murdered. 
> 
> This fic was meant to be historically accurate at one point but I threw that overboard. Medieval attitudes towards otherness and their ideas of death and afterlife don't really mix with a silly, fluffy little h/c fic. So there's anachronism all over the place. But the monastery this is supposed to be set in does exist. The title derives from it as [Silvacane](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvacane_Abbey) loosely translates to “forest of reeds”.
> 
> I hope you'll like it despite the little adjustments!


End file.
